If you can’t trust Obama on marijuana, why trust him on guns?

My Sunday column tells the story of Matthew Davies, 34, a medical marijuana dispensary owner, who is facing a minimum of seven years in prison because he believed that President Obama would direct his Justice Department not to prosecute people who use or distribute medical marijuana in states where it is legal.

Sending Davies to prison would be a complete travesty. He’s a successful entrepreneur who meets a payroll for his bistro and property management firm. He is a husband and father. He has no criminal record. As he told me during an interview, the U.S. Attorney took months before charging him — clearly even prosecutors didn’t see him as a threat to public safety.

Let me add: Seven years is a long time. It is a waste of taxpayer resources to put a nonviolent offender away for that time.

Here are a few quotes from President Obama over time on medical marijuana.

Barack Obama “believes that states and local governments are best positioned to strike the balance between making sure that these policies are not abused for recreational drug use and making sure that doctors and their patients can safely access pain relief.” - Campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, May 2008

“What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana. I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it’s against federal law.” – President Obama to Rolling Stone magazine, April 2012

“We’ve got bigger fish to fry. … It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal.” – Obama to ABC’s Barbara Walters on Dec. 14 after voters in Colorado

So here’s a question: If you cannot trust Obama on medical marijuana, why should gun owners trust him on guns?